EPA Region 10 issued final air quality permits to Shell on Sept. 19 for oil and gas exploration drilling in the Alaska Arctic. The permits will allow Shell to operate the Discoverer drillship and a support fleet of icebreakers, oil spill response vessels, and supply ships for up to 120 days each year in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea Outer Continental Shelf starting in 2012.

The award honors Genomatica's affect on the production of major industrial chemicals – those made and sold in billions of pounds per year – with better economics and a smaller environmental footprint, using biological organisms and renewable feedstocks.

Supermarkets are among the most energy-intensive buildings around, and refrigeration uses more than half of that energy. That doesn't even include the harm that leaking refrigerants cause to the ozone layer. EPA's GreenChill program works with companies and their refrigeration engineers across the country to help program participants lower their refrigeration emissions of all kinds.

NIST researchers have prototyped a framework to help organizations sort through the welter of choices and evaluate and implement sustainability standards most appropriate for their operations and interests.

The certification is based on the e-Stewards Standard, which prohibits the export of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries, the disposal of toxic waste in solid waste landfills and incinerators, and the use of prison labor in the recycling of electronics.

EPA discovered that a Brooklyn-based company has attempted to import candy-shaped mothballs from China that contain a toxic chemical and are not registered with EPA, as federal law requires, according to the agency. About 4800 brightly decorated bags of the product, called Fuji Lavender Moth Tablets, were discovered.

The U.S. Green Building Council has introduced a new program designed to streamline and create capacity for the LEED building certification process. LEED Automation enables LEED Online, the online tool projects use to submit documentation and certify LEED projects, to interact with third-party technology platforms.